'Mugabe must die' pastor's marriage 'on the rocks'

There seems to be trouble in the paradise of Remnant Church cleric Patrick Philip Mugadza and his wife Thelma Masaka amid reports that they have been arguing a lot following his incarceration for predicting that President Robert Mugabe would die in October this year.

The Daily News on Sunday can reveal that there has been a lot of stress in their marriage since his release from Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.

Mugadza, who is standing trial for telling journalists in January that he had received a prophecy from God that Mugabe would die on October 17, claimed his wife could have been compromised by the President's Office.

"I think she could be used by the regime because since I came back from prison, she has been acting funny," he claimed.

"I am convinced they are now using my wife as a means to get to me."

Mugadza said his marriage of three years was on the rocks because Masaka no longer respected him.

"She now tells me that she can leave her life without me and has openly told me that if I find her with another man, I should not ask her about it," Mugadza said.

"She no longer tells me about any of her plans and says it is because I never tell her about when I engage in activism.

"I have told her that she does not have to know everything I will be intending to do for security reasons."

Mugadza faces a separate charge of abusing the national flag and another charge of public nuisance after holding a one-man anti-government protest last year.

Quizzed on whether his constant involvement in anti-government protests might be taking a toll on his marriage, Mugadza retorted: "We stay next door to a lady who works in the President's Office and our landlord is Zanu-PF who happens to be a political commissar in her area.

"By the way, she rose to that position when I was in prison."

Mugadza alleges the wife can be "nasty and cold" when engrossed in her own problems. The preacher in the tourist resort town of Kariba was singularly focused on his protest action and sometimes the wife felt left out.

He said they have had monumental rows as the tension between them snaps and they explode at each other.

Mugadza said he had been withholding sex as an easy way to get back at his wife in a bid to take away her matrimonial bliss after arguments.

Mugadza dragged his wife to Glen View Police Station on Friday.

They have both been summoned to appear at the police precinct's Public Relations Departments for counselling.

"Would you please report to Glen View Police Post on June 26 in Room 8 together with (Philip) Mugadza," reads the letter to the wife, bearing a police date stamp.

Mugadza confirmed that he was withholding some midnight loving from his wife over a row over blankets.

"I told her that I was not going to indulge in sex with her and asked her to wait at least until the next day," he told the Daily News on Sunday.

"I had refused because it was from a background where for the past few days she had taken away blankets from the bed and made me sleep with just a duvet cover with the child in a cold night.

"She started pulling me from the bed to the floor and I screamed, then she left me."

Frantic efforts to reach the wife to get her side of the story were futile yesterday.